Professor Dorit Reiss on the National Vaccine Compensation Injury Act

Numerous serious studies, some very large scale, have examined whether there is a link between vaccines and autism. No credible study found one.

In 1986, Congress passed the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Act (NVICA) creating the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP). The program attempted to address two problems: the government’s fears that vaccine manufacturers will leave the market due to lawsuits, leaving children and adults vulnerable to preventable diseases and plaintiffs’ desires for a simpler, cheaper, more certain process for compensation.

It was a compromise with something for everyone, created with input from, among others, the National Vaccine Information Center, an organization that criticizes vaccine safety and emphasizes vaccine risks.

However, in a new video narrated by actor Rob Schneider, the Canary Party claims that the only reason there is doubt about the link between vaccines and autism is because the NVICA created a system that discriminates against plaintiffs and works completely in favor of pharmaceutical companies, and that it is run by a corrupt government.

The video is wrong pretty much from start to finish. This blog post will address three of its problems: the claim that NVICA is the only thing hiding the link between vaccines and autism; the inaccurate, incomplete depiction of NVICP; and why the claim that using the regular courts instead will benefit plaintiffs is wrong.

University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco is redefining legal education through our experiential, interdisciplinary, and international approach to the law. We integrate rigorous academics with hands-on practice, preparing our graduates to tackle the legal challenges—and leverage the opportunities—of the 21st century.